Playlist Shuffle
by fragrantfields
Summary: Laura just needs a bit of distraction after the latest round of bad news...but she wasn't expecting to see this side of the Commander...


Laura hesitated before knocking on the hatch. Ordinarily she'd have called first, set up a meeting, but her appointment with Cottle had left her a little ragged around the edges. A dry, calm discussion with the Commander about water recycling or fuel rationing would get her mind back on her duties and off the latest deterioration.

She frowned at the odd twanging notes coming from within his quarters. _Is that what I think it is?_ She told herself she was imagining things and rapped her knuckles against the metal.

The sounds stopped.

When Commander Adama opened the hatch, he had a slight flush to his cheeks, and his tunic was half-unbuttoned. A twinge of envy twisted in her stomach. He looked more relaxed than he had any right to be. More than she'd been since the attacks.

"Please, come in, Madame President," he said, stepping back from the door. He was trying to set down the glass in his hand and button his tunic at the same time, and the effect was disarming. "Did we have a meeting?"

"No, Commander." Now it was her turn to feel a flush of awkwardness. Was her coming here too presumptuous? "I was on my way back to Colonial One and…" She groaned inside. What was she supposed to say here? _Thought I'd say hello? Needed a distraction?_

His open smile put her at ease. "Wanted a detour from duty for a few minutes? Believe me, I get that." He ushered her in, nodding at her security detail as they took position outside the hatch. "Fix you a drink? It's seventeen hundred somewhere."

Something had him in a good mood. Her envy bit again. Then she noticed the extra sheen in his eyes. Had he been... _weeping?_ Her brain rebelled at that thought; far too outlandish.

"Yes, that'd be great. Thank you," she said, taking a seat on the oversized leather couch. She fought an almost irresistible urge to kick her pumps off and curl her legs under her.

Maybe when they knew each other better.

He turned to the drink cart, revealing a scattering of bright memory card cases on his desk. The soft twanging she'd heard earlier suddenly clicked.

"'Your Hearth, My Home?'" She smiled as he turned. "I remember that-came out my senior year at college."

He cocked an eyebrow. "You listened to country music? I would have figured you for classical."

She rose and went to his desk, running her fingers over the cases. "Waylon Sutter. My dad always liked his stuff...the ballads." She picked up a case with a cowboy on the cover, broad Tauron pastures stretching behind him.

"'My Hands Belong to Ceres, My Heart Belongs to You'? That's one I've never heard of." She flipped it over and began reading the song titles.

He handed her a tumbler with an inch of what looked like strong Tauron scotch over ice and sat beside her.

"Yeah, that's an old harvest-time song. Most of those never crossed over into mainstream radio." He shrugged. "I always turned my nose up at country stuff-thought it was for old people, or people still on the agricultural planets." He looked into his own glass for a second then raised it and drank.

"Then I got old myself." A sheepish grin crossed his face. "And songs about home, and family...they started making a little more sense."

A cover done in gold and green caught her eye. "Hope the Shore Has A Fishin' Hole?" She began to laugh at the somewhat sacrilegious title. His suddenly somber manner brought her up short as he gently took the case out of her hand.

"That one's kind of depressing. It's about a father and-" he broke off. "I got it a couple of years ago. I don't play it much any more."

She sat back down. "I'd like to hear it sometime. My father loved fishing, and I…" Now she looked into the depths of her glass. "I've been thinking about the Shore a lot lately. I like the idea that there'd be a place to fish."

Silence and the weight of the dead filled the quarters for a second. She cleared her throat and blinked until her eyes cleared from their sudden mistiness.

"I can't stay long, but I wouldn't mind hearing one more of your secret music stash." She found herself able to smile again. "How about you hit 'shuffle' and see what comes on?"

His relieved look said he was grateful for the diversion. "Okay, if you promise you won't spread it around the fleet that the Commander listens to country once in a while."

"Your secret's safe with me, Bill. We all have ours, don't we? Our secrets, I mean." She sipped at her drink. "This one's pretty tame." She shoved Cottle's report out of her mind. Maybe she'd share that another time. _At some point, I'll have to._

 _But not today._

An acoustic guitar began playing, and a man with a soft plains accent began singing about mountains falling into the sea, skies crumbling and falling, and not being afraid.

 _Just as long as you stand by me._

Laura toed off her shoes without thinking and curled her legs under her. She shouldn't linger...she had a shuttle to catch. Maybe just a few more minutes…. She closed her eyes and hummed a bit of the chorus.

"Nice melody," she said.

"I bet it'd be easy to dance to," he said, a slightly wistful note in his voice.

Laura smiled, eyes closed and hiding from reality a little longer.

"I bet you're right."


End file.
